Richard Jewell
(Rated R for language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images.)
If you lived in the metro Atlanta area in 1996, you probably remember how crazy it was during the Summer Olympics. Not only were Georgians experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime event, practically every other aspect of life was filtered through the games for most of the spring and summer. Olympic-themed sales, special menu items in restaurants, teacher’s lesson plans, you name it – there was practically no part of culture left untouched.
That heightened fervor created a perfect storm of panic and paranoia in media coverage of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which killed one person and injured 111 others (a cameraman also died of a heart attack while running to the scene). In the aftermath, security guard Richard Jewell – who saved countless lives by finding the bomb and helping to move the crowd back shortly before it detonated – went from hero to all-but-convicted perpetrator in the span of a few days because of chatty investigators and frenzied news reports.
Jewell always proclaimed his innocence, but it took until the following year – when the FBI named actual bomber Eric Rudolph as the prime suspect – for scrutiny to lift fully. Even then, the fiasco continued to have a devastating effect on Jewell’s health. He died of heart failure in 2007.
Now, almost a quarter-century later, director Clint Eastwood is making sure Jewell’s hero status is restored. Granted, he’s also got a couple of political axes to grind along the way, which leads to some valid criticisms of media and law enforcement getting lost in the overkill. But, on the whole, Richard Jewell is easily Eastwood’s best film in years, going all the way back to Gran Torino and maybe even Million Dollar Baby.
A big reason for that is he’s got a compelling true story to work with (well, mostly true – more on that in a moment), but the material is also a good match for his fast, no-nonsense shooting style. Billy Ray’s screenplay does most of the heavy lifting and Eastwood relies on strong actors to convey the material’s suspense, injustice and humanity (with a couple of grating exceptions).
Heavy-hitters like Sam Rockwell and Kathy Bates anchor the film in outstanding supporting roles (as Jewell’s attorney and mother, respectively), but the film’s biggest strength is Paul Walter Hauser, who is flat-out incredible as the title character. Best known for playing dimwitted rednecks in BlacKkKlansman and I, Tonya, the actor deftly avoids caricature and easy stereotypes here.
He instills the character with a quiet dignity, while also not glossing over his flaws. The real Jewell was a complicated man who wasn’t always likeable, but that doesn’t mean he should’ve been railroaded for a crime he didn’t commit. Hauser clearly conveys that without showboating. In a less competitive year, he might’ve been a serious Best Actor contender.
Sadly, Olivia Wilde and Jon Hamm aren’t as fortunate when it comes to their characters’ complexity. Their treatment is a massive flaw in an otherwise impressive film. Wilde plays Kathy Scruggs, written as a cartoonishly awful journalist who doesn’t care about ethics and sleeps with her sources for info. Hamm’s FBI agent comes off just as bad since he’s so convinced Jewell is the bomber that he intentionally ignores all evidence to the contrary.
The big difference is that Hamm’s character is a fictional composite of several law enforcement agents, while Scruggs was a real Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter who died in 2001 and can’t defend herself. (Although her friends and colleagues have forcefully criticized the film’s insulting depiction of her.) The actors try their best to make poorly written characters seem believably human. Although they don’t pull it off, it’s not for lack of talent or effort on their part.
The whole situation is frustrating because Eastwood is doing the same thing he’s accusing these characters of doing. He has a certain view of “the media” and “the deep state” in his mind (the movie’s clearest narrative threads), so he manipulates the facts to make the film match his opinion, reality be damned.
Although it’s tough to get past this near-catastrophic misstep, the rest of Richard Jewell is absolutely worth watching. Considering Eastwood’s recent track record (American Sniper, Sully and The Mule were all global hits, and even the disappointing The 15:17 to Paris was profitable) and the timeliness of the material, there’s a good chance the film could be yet another big success for the 89-year-old filmmaker.
Grade: B
Blu-ray Review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
(Rated R for language throughout, some strong graphic violence, drug use, and sexual references.)
Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, one of 2019’s best, is a nostalgia-tinged love letter to the bygone days of Hollywood that’s downright wistful compared to his previous work. The story takes place in 1969 Los Angeles, when the entertainment industry is on the verge of a monumental shift.
Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the former star of a Western television series who gave it up for a movie career that didn’t pan out. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is his stunt man and faithful sidekick – although one could argue who is the alpha in the relationship. They’re both starting to realize their days in the industry are probably numbered since younger performers are getting all the jobs, including rising star Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).
That’s pretty much the basic plot, but don’t let the film’s deceptively slow pace fool you. Even when the characters are doing something mundane like repairing a television antenna, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface – including powerful themes like masculinity, friendship, the fleeting nature of success and how fast the world can change before you realize it.
Performances are fantastic across the board, including famous faces who only pop up for a scene or two, including Al Pacino, Timothy Olyphant and the late Luke Perry. DiCaprio and Pitt have remarkable chemistry and their own successful careers add emotional weight to their characters. Robbie is outstanding as Tate, although Tarantino mostly uses her as a symbol rather than a fully fleshed-out person.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is bound to be divisive even by Tarantino’s standards, although not necessarily because of the film’s language or ultraviolence, which most viewers have come to expect. It’s the intentionally shaggy structure that’s going to alienate a lot of people: a nearly-three hour, mostly plotless story in which characters sit around, talk a lot, drive while listening to the radio, watch movies and TV, and drink too much.
Honestly, aside from a couple of suspenseful and funny exceptions, there’s no traditional “action” to speak of until the movie’s final moments. Still, because of Tate’s place in the story, the relaxed, free-flowing tone is constantly undercut with foreboding and melancholy as the movie ambles toward seeming inevitability.
Special features: Over 20 minutes of additional scenes; five behind-the-scenes featurettes about various elements of production.
Grade: A
 |
| Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
(Rated R for language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images.)
If you lived in the metro Atlanta area in 1996, you probably remember how crazy it was during the Summer Olympics. Not only were Georgians experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime event, practically every other aspect of life was filtered through the games for most of the spring and summer. Olympic-themed sales, special menu items in restaurants, teacher’s lesson plans, you name it – there was practically no part of culture left untouched.
That heightened fervor created a perfect storm of panic and paranoia in media coverage of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which killed one person and injured 111 others (a cameraman also died of a heart attack while running to the scene). In the aftermath, security guard Richard Jewell – who saved countless lives by finding the bomb and helping to move the crowd back shortly before it detonated – went from hero to all-but-convicted perpetrator in the span of a few days because of chatty investigators and frenzied news reports.
Jewell always proclaimed his innocence, but it took until the following year – when the FBI named actual bomber Eric Rudolph as the prime suspect – for scrutiny to lift fully. Even then, the fiasco continued to have a devastating effect on Jewell’s health. He died of heart failure in 2007.
Now, almost a quarter-century later, director Clint Eastwood is making sure Jewell’s hero status is restored. Granted, he’s also got a couple of political axes to grind along the way, which leads to some valid criticisms of media and law enforcement getting lost in the overkill. But, on the whole, Richard Jewell is easily Eastwood’s best film in years, going all the way back to Gran Torino and maybe even Million Dollar Baby.
A big reason for that is he’s got a compelling true story to work with (well, mostly true – more on that in a moment), but the material is also a good match for his fast, no-nonsense shooting style. Billy Ray’s screenplay does most of the heavy lifting and Eastwood relies on strong actors to convey the material’s suspense, injustice and humanity (with a couple of grating exceptions).
Heavy-hitters like Sam Rockwell and Kathy Bates anchor the film in outstanding supporting roles (as Jewell’s attorney and mother, respectively), but the film’s biggest strength is Paul Walter Hauser, who is flat-out incredible as the title character. Best known for playing dimwitted rednecks in BlacKkKlansman and I, Tonya, the actor deftly avoids caricature and easy stereotypes here.
He instills the character with a quiet dignity, while also not glossing over his flaws. The real Jewell was a complicated man who wasn’t always likeable, but that doesn’t mean he should’ve been railroaded for a crime he didn’t commit. Hauser clearly conveys that without showboating. In a less competitive year, he might’ve been a serious Best Actor contender.
Sadly, Olivia Wilde and Jon Hamm aren’t as fortunate when it comes to their characters’ complexity. Their treatment is a massive flaw in an otherwise impressive film. Wilde plays Kathy Scruggs, written as a cartoonishly awful journalist who doesn’t care about ethics and sleeps with her sources for info. Hamm’s FBI agent comes off just as bad since he’s so convinced Jewell is the bomber that he intentionally ignores all evidence to the contrary.
The big difference is that Hamm’s character is a fictional composite of several law enforcement agents, while Scruggs was a real Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter who died in 2001 and can’t defend herself. (Although her friends and colleagues have forcefully criticized the film’s insulting depiction of her.) The actors try their best to make poorly written characters seem believably human. Although they don’t pull it off, it’s not for lack of talent or effort on their part.
The whole situation is frustrating because Eastwood is doing the same thing he’s accusing these characters of doing. He has a certain view of “the media” and “the deep state” in his mind (the movie’s clearest narrative threads), so he manipulates the facts to make the film match his opinion, reality be damned.
Although it’s tough to get past this near-catastrophic misstep, the rest of Richard Jewell is absolutely worth watching. Considering Eastwood’s recent track record (American Sniper, Sully and The Mule were all global hits, and even the disappointing The 15:17 to Paris was profitable) and the timeliness of the material, there’s a good chance the film could be yet another big success for the 89-year-old filmmaker.
Grade: B
 |
| Courtesy of Sony |
(Rated R for language throughout, some strong graphic violence, drug use, and sexual references.)
Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, one of 2019’s best, is a nostalgia-tinged love letter to the bygone days of Hollywood that’s downright wistful compared to his previous work. The story takes place in 1969 Los Angeles, when the entertainment industry is on the verge of a monumental shift.
Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the former star of a Western television series who gave it up for a movie career that didn’t pan out. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is his stunt man and faithful sidekick – although one could argue who is the alpha in the relationship. They’re both starting to realize their days in the industry are probably numbered since younger performers are getting all the jobs, including rising star Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).
That’s pretty much the basic plot, but don’t let the film’s deceptively slow pace fool you. Even when the characters are doing something mundane like repairing a television antenna, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface – including powerful themes like masculinity, friendship, the fleeting nature of success and how fast the world can change before you realize it.
Performances are fantastic across the board, including famous faces who only pop up for a scene or two, including Al Pacino, Timothy Olyphant and the late Luke Perry. DiCaprio and Pitt have remarkable chemistry and their own successful careers add emotional weight to their characters. Robbie is outstanding as Tate, although Tarantino mostly uses her as a symbol rather than a fully fleshed-out person.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is bound to be divisive even by Tarantino’s standards, although not necessarily because of the film’s language or ultraviolence, which most viewers have come to expect. It’s the intentionally shaggy structure that’s going to alienate a lot of people: a nearly-three hour, mostly plotless story in which characters sit around, talk a lot, drive while listening to the radio, watch movies and TV, and drink too much.
Honestly, aside from a couple of suspenseful and funny exceptions, there’s no traditional “action” to speak of until the movie’s final moments. Still, because of Tate’s place in the story, the relaxed, free-flowing tone is constantly undercut with foreboding and melancholy as the movie ambles toward seeming inevitability.
Special features: Over 20 minutes of additional scenes; five behind-the-scenes featurettes about various elements of production.
Grade: A
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